Presenting . . . The Gift Of Me
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday February 2, 1999
IT'S too late for presents.
Now, I know you all would've showered me with expensive gifts if you knew today was my birthday, but don't worry, material things mean nothing to me.
(Two sentences into the column and I've already told a massive untruth.)
I mean, who doesn't like getting presents?
Even the bearded dude in the loincloth sitting on top of some mountain handing out the secrets of life to lost souls for no remuneration, he's probably thinking:
`Thoughtless mongrels, all I want is a Drizabone and a Big Mac.'
The `birthday present' deal is one everyone likes because it's the closest concept there is to getting something for nothing.
All you did was get born.
You remember absolutely nothing about it whatsoever.
You have to take your mother's word for it that she went through total agony to bring your miserable guts into the world, and that only by the grace of the Maternal Code she still found a way to love you and be happy and emotionally overwhelmed by the experience.
I don't think I'd begrudge any mother who, while watching their maniacal offspring rip brightly coloured paper to shreds in search of another offering, well, I wouldn't begrudge her secretly harbouring thoughts along the lines of:
`What's he getting presents for? All he did was turn up. I did all the work! I went through hell!'
And that's exactly what I put my Mum through 36 years ago at Moree's Auburn St Maternity Hospital.
Ten hours of labour on a stinking hot February day in a small hospital where private rooms hadn't been invented and air-conditioning was a myth.
Hello world.
There I was, a tick over nine pounds and ready to do nothing but cry for the first year or two of my life.
This is what Mum got for her 25th birthday!
Admittedly I was a day early but I don't think she was all that concerned.
Actually, when I got to talking I got things a bit mixed up and I'd tell Mum's guests I was her wedding present.
The fact I had an older brother and sister meant Mum had to politely correct me and explain the situation.
Now, I mentioned the crying.
It seems I had a few breathing problems as a bub and the only way I'd sleep at night was being held by Mum or Dad, who apparently had to be standing up or it just didn't work.
Just what Dad wanted after a 12-hour shift on the tractor.
Just what Mum wanted after running around after the three of us all day.
But come February 2, I'd always get presents!
The next day I'd give Mum some lavender soap or some really cheap perfume that she gave me the money to buy.
What a great deal.
But the birthday was the only way as a kid you could really determine that 12 months had passed.
If it wasn't for birthdays and Christmas, your childhood would've just been one loooong year.
You get to my age now and they come around all too quickly.
And when you try to reconcile what you've done with your life it can become pretty scary.
Okay, I'm a single 36-year-old poet.
That's about it.
I can nearly hear my Dad speaking through my lips.
`What are you doing? When are you going to get a real job?'
We'll, you heard it here first.
I'm going to have a serious think about it in the next couple of years.
A poem for my Mum
`Grow up!' my mother told me, more than once or twice
`At your age I would've hoped that you'd know better.'
But see, youngest sons are put on earth to add a bit of spice
I think they got me from the jar marked `Chili Pepper' So I sometimes caused her heartache but nothing all that hot
Like the time I chopped the wood and split my head
I came in streaming blood, Mum near fainted on the spot
I think she thought her little boy was dead But she'd dress me as Lloyd Bridges for the fancy dress affair
There was the day she taught me how to fold my socks
We had a lot of fun out there at `Candelar'
Especially eating jelly crystals from the box There were Columbines in Cornflakes, Laredo on TV
And our painting that they showed on Owlie School
Some days on the place it was only Mum and me
And I used to think that that was pretty cool I'd dress up as a cowboy and sing songs with Frankie Laine
I knew the words to Bowie Knife and Wanted Man
And Mum would sing them with me, she was my Calamity Jane She'd do those things that only mothers can That was many years ago and yet I'm still her `little boy'
It's her right to call me that 'cause she's my mother
I've put her through the mill from tears of grief to tears of joy
She's always there and that's the reason that I love her
© 1999 Newcastle Herald